ALSO this is a fantastic review - seems accurate and points out the defects while celebrating the great stuff. I'd go see this show after reading this review, knowing exactly what to expect and loving the parts that work!!!
Yeah, I'd sort of forgotten about the whole thing, but it was a fascinating production (and I felt extremely justified in everything I said on account of how I have READ IT IN GREEK).
i hear you. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up and be a book critic, now I ONLY post anonymous reviews of books and really only the ones that I loved. It is too painful to see the effect of a bad review on a good friend. (Or even a mortal enemy, frankly.) And YET it it a joy to analyze and consider how things might be improved, it is a pleasure to see a play a year after a preview and see how it has evolved, it is a complete delight to read a friend's book after a great editor has given super notes... Maybe the fault lies in the fact that shows open too soon, books get published too quickly, TV shows and movies have too many producer fingerprints.....?
Reviews are such a fascinating genre--as are the outlets that publish them. Like did you know Booklist is a recommend-only journal--as in they only publish positive reviews? (Kirkus, on the other hand, might be described as a diss-only, or almost only).
I mostly just want to know whether *I* want to read a book (or see a play, or whatever), which is sort of a separate question from whether or not it's any good (a term I'm not into applying to works of art--they're good *for the right person*).
Kirkus has the additionally quesiontionable practice of allowing people to pay to be reviewed - though paying does not at ALL guarantee a positive review. I would thing that if they made you pay for the review and then they reviewed it positively they should make that clear in some way "this is expectedly good" for the fifth book by a known author. and "HOLY COW GO BUY THIS BOOK" for the unknown author who had to pay and now will have to pay to publicize the positive review!
That was an incredible story!
Terese
you're amazing -
The theatre department here was so maddened by this review I wrote that they refused to talk to me for quite some time. Then I had a baby and stopped writing about theatre: https://littlevillagemag.com/antigone-2-0-332011-through-3122011/
ALSO this is a fantastic review - seems accurate and points out the defects while celebrating the great stuff. I'd go see this show after reading this review, knowing exactly what to expect and loving the parts that work!!!
Yeah, I'd sort of forgotten about the whole thing, but it was a fascinating production (and I felt extremely justified in everything I said on account of how I have READ IT IN GREEK).
i hear you. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up and be a book critic, now I ONLY post anonymous reviews of books and really only the ones that I loved. It is too painful to see the effect of a bad review on a good friend. (Or even a mortal enemy, frankly.) And YET it it a joy to analyze and consider how things might be improved, it is a pleasure to see a play a year after a preview and see how it has evolved, it is a complete delight to read a friend's book after a great editor has given super notes... Maybe the fault lies in the fact that shows open too soon, books get published too quickly, TV shows and movies have too many producer fingerprints.....?
Reviews are such a fascinating genre--as are the outlets that publish them. Like did you know Booklist is a recommend-only journal--as in they only publish positive reviews? (Kirkus, on the other hand, might be described as a diss-only, or almost only).
I mostly just want to know whether *I* want to read a book (or see a play, or whatever), which is sort of a separate question from whether or not it's any good (a term I'm not into applying to works of art--they're good *for the right person*).
Kirkus has the additionally quesiontionable practice of allowing people to pay to be reviewed - though paying does not at ALL guarantee a positive review. I would thing that if they made you pay for the review and then they reviewed it positively they should make that clear in some way "this is expectedly good" for the fifth book by a known author. and "HOLY COW GO BUY THIS BOOK" for the unknown author who had to pay and now will have to pay to publicize the positive review!
Now this I did not know!